Married Life and Asceticism

It all began with our forefathers, Adam and Eve. They
received a commandment in paradise not to taste of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. 2:17). The
commandment not to “taste of this or that” is
quite well known to any Orthodox Christian. This is the
commandment to fastŚthe most ancient, beginning
factor of family life.

Sts. Peter and Febronia. A painting by: Alexander Prostev

As
we know, the first family was tempted by satan, the
forefather of all evil. That envier could not calmly
watch their happy life. Adam and Eve broke the
commandment of not eating. The Lord called them to
account. Then they tried to place their own blame on
someone else, as if they were not guilty at all. Not
only that, but Adam blamed his wife, who, as he
emphasized, he had received from God. That is how the
fall into sin happened, and people did not repent of
what they had done. The Lord deprived them of paradise,
and gave them a penance.

Let us briefly recall the words of that penance from God.
The wife was told: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow
and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee (Gen. 3:16). To the husband, the
Lord said, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it
wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt
thou return (Gen. 3:19).

Sorrows entered the life of human beings. Steadfast
endurance of sorrows is an important part of asceticism.

Our task is to remember that sorrows came as the result of
sins. We have to bear them without anger, without
murmuring against God. It is painful to be sick, painful
to die (to return to dust). This feeling of sorrow must be
melted in repentance. Then those oppressive thoughts of
death can become exalted; they can become the remembrance
of death.

After the fall, Adam not only had to workŚhe had to
work hard. That is how it was in his life, and that is how
it is in ours. Every man has to think about how he will
feed himself and his family. He must at times do work that
is both hard and dreary.

Archimandrite Sergei (Shevich) often found that his
parishioners were sometimes weighed down by the work that
they had to do every day. Fr. Sergei pointed out to them
that work for a married person is the same as an obedience
for a monk. As we know, monks do not choose their
obedience according to their own taste. The monastic does
whatever he has been given the blessing to do. Be it
unattractive and boring, obedience nevertheless accustoms
a monk to cutting off his own will, and, accordingly, to
do the will of God. For Adam and his descendants,
God’s will is to live after the fall under
non-paradisal conditions, not to complain about this, and
to repent. They should also hope in God, Who leads people
to His Kingdom.

For a woman, a time of particular trial is pregnancy. She
has to think more about her child than about herself, to
pay special attention to her own health, keep to a regime,
and, perhaps leave a lucrative job for the sake of her
childŚto give up her planned career growth. This is
her ascesis of self-restraint. This is not to mention the
pain of childbirth, and the uninterrupted care and fuss
over the newborn.

The infant’s parents have to deny themselves basic
rest, and are sleep deprived. They worry about their
little one, and pray during anxious times for their
child’s well-being: “Lord, You know all
things, and Your love is perfect. Take the soul of (name),
and do what I wish to do, but cannot.”

And if the child was born handicappedů What faith
in God’s Providence is needed in order to bear that
heavy cross!

Almost immediately after the birth of a child a great
labor beginsŚraising the child. Even if we take the
non-religious side of the matter, we know that we cannot
get by without God’s help. Fr. Gleb Kaleda was right
when he insisted that the foundation of upbringing and
education is placed in the family, while school and
college serve only to supplement what has been done in
the family. The supplement is important, but it only
enhances the main thing.

Often we see that in school children are required to
memorize information, but taught very little about how to
think for themselves. Even less are they taught morals.
What should be done in this case? The family can make up
for the inadequacies of an impersonal and commercial
education and upbringingŚthat is if the parents
seriously take care of their child, and not only of his
physical needs, but also his emotional needs. All this
takes many patient years.

Parents are also called to care for the spiritual needs of
their child. It would be good to teach the small child to
pray (in the majority of schools and universities, he will
not be taught to pray to God). But to do this the parents
themselves need to know how to pray attentively, to
understand the language of prayer, and to accessibly
explain the essence of the church services to their child.
As the child grows to school age, he should be prepared
for his first confession. How can parents explain to him
what sin is, and why he needs to tell the priest about his
sins. Here one’s personal example is needed, the
parents’ personal efforts on the spiritual path. If
the mother takes the child to Communion but does not
herself approach the chalice or go to confession, if the
father goes only rarely to church, then it will be pretty
hard to convince the child that all of us need the Church
Sacraments.

In the home where there is no understanding of breakfast,
lunch, and dinner, where everyone eats whenever they want
(and even when they don’t want), it is hard for a
child to assimilate the concept of fasting. “You
can’t lead children to fasting if they are allowed
to eat whenever they like, if they are allowed to run
through the house with a piece of bread and sausage or a
biscuit. Regularity of food intake is, if you will, the
beginning of Christian ascesisů Through prayer
before a meal a person learns to begin everything with
prayer. If there are visitors in the house and it is not
possible to pray in front of them, it is important that
all members of the family cross themselves if only
mentallyů It is necessary to cultivate both the
obvious and secret forms of everyday Christian
life,” Fr. Gleb Kaleda used to say.[1]
Domestic life can become a good support for spiritual
life, but it can also become a profound obstruction.

*áá *áá *

The passion of self-love stands out as the family’s
worst enemy. Egoism is a dangerous enemy.

When a married couple does not want to yield to each other
in anything, each morbidly guarding his or her own pride;
if each continually counts the times that he or she did
something for the family, then that family will
little-by-little fall apart. If couples easily give place
to anger, argue over trifles, and cannot peacefully live
with each other’s close relatives, then they
themselves feel wretched, and their children absorb their
bad example. How hard it is to bring up children by our
own example!

True ascetic labor is required of parents in order not to
consign their children to the education of television,
internet groups, or the streets. That is on the one hand;
on the other hand, children must not be tortured with
excess care. After all, super-care leads to infantilism,
introversion, and sometimes even rebellion against
parents.

The family is a school of love.

All Christian ascesis is directed toward acquiring love.
Christ the Savior boiled down all the commandments to two:
love of God and love of neighbor. St. Theophan the Recluse
compares love to fire: if we do not throw logs on the fire
it will go out; if love between husband and wife is not
stoked with deeds of love, it will eventually die out. And
what are these deeds of love? They are the deeds of basic
care one for the other, obvious and unobvious signs of
attention. They are the ability during arguments to
overcome outbreaks of anger and to be the first to come
and make peace. They are the ability to take your
egotistical inclinations in hand, to correct your actions,
always thinking to yourself “I am not the only
one.”

Fr. Gleb Kaleda wrote very well and in detail in his
book about the ascetical life in a family, The House
Church. His book is firmly supported by Orthodox
tradition that has gone down through the ages, but he does
not close his eyes on the particulars of Christian life in
our complex times.

[1] Fr. Gleb Kaleda, a professor at Moscow State University, lived in Moscow during Soviet times, and was secretly ordained a priest. In his milieu it was often dangerous to say prayers before meals and cross oneself in the presence of people not close to the family, since one never knew who would report that display of Christian faith to the authorities.